East Asia

If Marco Polo were alive today, what tales would he tell about China and Tibet?

Published

5 years ago

March 20, 2018

In 1298, Marco Polo told astonishing stories about a marvellous land he called Cathay, modern-day China which was ruled by the Yuan dynasty. During his extraordinary journey, Marco Polo also visited Tibet, which was also under the Yuan dynasty. He was the first Westerner to refer to Tibet as a part of China, and nobody objected. Marco Polo had no idea how his observations might change the face of the globe.

Since those days, world events have gathered speed. Columbus discovered America, at first believing it was Asia; disaffected and persecuted Europeans began to populate the shores of the new continent, squeezing further inland the indigenous population. Empire builders sought new colonies ever further afield. New lands to conquer, new resources to appropriate, new riches to seize…

Societies were subjected to similar upheavals. Old forms of exploitation were reinvented, with slavery giving way to feudal serfdom; ancient and new religious beliefs spread across the planet, to capitalism and communist ideologies divided the globe and its peoples.

Following the Second World War, the US saw in Tibet a religious patent that could be exploited against communism as an ongoing propaganda campaign. It started with an armed uprising in 1959 against the People’s Republic of China, followed by the exile of the 14^th Dalai Lama in India and the establishment of the Government of Tibet in Exile ruling over about 100,000 Tibetan refugees settled mainly in northern India.

Ever since, China has considered all Tibet’s pro-independence movements as part of a strategic propaganda operation abetted by Western imperialists who want to destabilize China. This view was bolstered, for example, by the CIA‘s backing of Tibetan insurgencies during the 1950s and 1960s, the support of Western NGOs for the “pro-Tibet” riots of 2008 when China hosted the Olympic Games, and the continuing self-immolations by Tibetans and Buddhist monks promoted since 2009 by the Government of Tibet in Exile, praised as courageous by the 14^th Dalai Lama – although he questioned their effectiveness – and glorified by NGOs advocating human rights for Tibet.

There have been intermittent expectations of formal negotiations between the principal parties to the Tibet issue, but their zero-sum view of Tibet’s political status, reciprocal accusations and mutual suspicion have been persistent barriers. The participation of other actors has also had an effect. Many foreign states acknowledge Tibet as a part of China, while none formally recognizes the Government of Tibet in Exile – also known as the Central Tibetan Administration (CTA) – yet a number of them sustain the cause of the exiles in other ways. Thousands of supporters of Tibetan independence, encouraged by Western NGOs have also rallied to this cause, including members of the world’s parliaments, rights activists, actors, musicians, and ordinary converts to Tibetan Buddhism in the West.

In reality, communications on Tibet are persistently disseminated by the CTA, Western NGOs and the Chinese government as part of well-planned and organized propaganda campaigns serving contrasting geopolitical and military interests. China is in a particularly difficult position, since it is surrounded by topographical features that make it difficult for major armies to pass through. In the southwest there is Tibet: from a military point of view, it is a solid wall that has to be held. China has a fundamental security interest in retaining Tibet as well as an economic interest in its enormous natural resources, because Tibet is also the Chinese anchor in the Himalayas with its huge and still virtually untapped reservoir of minerals, metals, water and energy. From this perspective Tibet can be considered as a major Achilles’ heel for China.

In the context of decades of propaganda during and after the Cold War, serving the different geopolitical and military interests, the concept of Shangri-La is particularly important to our understanding of how Tibet is presented. Shangri-La is a fictional place described in the 1933 novel Lost Horizon by the British author James Hilton. Hilton describes it as a mystical, harmonious Himalayan valley, serenely guided by a monastery of lamas or spiritual masters. Shangri-La has evolved in the Western collective imagination into a modern surrogate of the lost Garden of Eden: a mythical utopia, a permanently happy land, isolated from the outside world, dedicated to the preservation of peace, spirituality and nature. It is an ideological fantasy representing the last refuge of Western societies from their present and historical sins of consumerism, atheism, capitalism and colonialism. The Shangri-La notion is the central constituent for manoeuvring popular opinion in the propagandistic exploitation of the collective imagination in Western countries.

The narrative of the Tibetan Government in Exile

Leaders of the Central Tibetan Administration (CTA) have opportunistically adopted parts of the myth of a pre-1951 Shangri-La in Tibet to promote a theocracy, from which the rulers gain legitimacy and to whose members secular Tibetans should pay obeisance, rather than being controlled by them. In promoting this idea, they use only that part of the Western idealization of Tibet, as Shangri-La, that is useful in legitimizing their status in the eyes of the West, however cementing their de-facto theocratic power within the exiled diaspora.

Because of the need for Western support of the exiled government and the significant role played by externally-based NGOs supporting Tibetan independence, Western hegemony is accepted in the diaspora’s discourses concerning Tibet and the Tibetan identity. A strategic essentialism that simplifies Tibetan identities for Westerners in the context of Shangri-La also impacts the self-identities of exiled Tibetans, many of whom accept Westernized notions of the Tibetan identity. Thus, although a modern sense of nationhood was absent in pre-1951 Tibet, CTA representations cast Tibetan nationhood as an historical reality. To gain legitimacy in the West, democratizing elements have been added to self-governance in exile, and the vocabulary of human rights, development, environmental protection, and so forth has been deployed by the CTA and supported by Western NGOs. Representations that directly fulfil the established Western image of Tibetans as inherently spiritual and peaceful have been especially prominent, forged by the personification of this utopia in the figure of the 14^th Dalai Lama as a symbolic icon.

In reality, spirituality and sovereignty are linked through Tibet’s traditional system of theocratic government, in which politics and religion were tightly knit. Many exiled government officials continue promoting this system as ideal for Tibet and as an alternative to the atheistic Communist system of China. On the other hand, China has over the last three decades relaxed draconian and brutal Mao-era rules, by opening the door to private sector capitalism and by allowing individuals to practice a religion of their choice. There are now almost three times as many Buddhists in China as there are Communist Party members – there are 90 million members of Communist Party of China, some 250 million Buddhists and 200,000 registered Buddhist monks.

While the Chinese government’s approach to Buddhism has been liberal, it clearly takes the religion’s influence seriously, given its importance in Chinese society. The Chinese government is also acutely sensitive to the possibility of what it sees as external interference, especially on the delicate subject of Tibet and Tibetan Buddhism.

A particularly divisive issue for the Buddhist community, both within Tibet and in the exiled communities is devotion to the Dorje Shugden deity, a 400-year old practice that began in the 17^th century and has become a major tradition in Tibetan Buddhism. At the origin of the controversy lies a de facto ban on the religious practice issued by the 14^th Dalai Lama decades ago. The CTA sees the religious practice of Dorje Shugden as a competing and heretical movement that may undermine their notion of the spiritual leadership of the 14^th Dalai Lama inside Tibet and among Tibetan Buddhists.

The de-facto ban issued by the 14^th Dalai Lama has generated considerable social tension and division in the diaspora, as well as in Tibetan society within China, leading the Chinese government to consider the Dorje Shugden controversy an important front for undermining what it says are efforts promoted by the 14^th Dalai Lama aimed at destabilizing China. The religious hostility has been fed by considerable propaganda and counterpropaganda efforts during the last two decades and it is still an open battlefield that may escalate at any time. In historical terms, the implications could be reminiscent of Martin Luther’s reformation of Christianity centuries ago.

Significantly sensitive are the methodical efforts of the exiled government to silence opposing voices in the controversy, using systematic defamation and coercive methods, including the use of modern disinformation means like coordinated troll campaigns on social media and fake news campaigns. Such methods seem out of place in the peaceful Shangri-La narrative that is usually promoted, but rather more suited to an atmosphere of historical crisis like the period of the Inquisition. Additionally, it has been continuously observed that Dorje Shugden followers, monks and monasteries in Tibet and abroad are portrayed as heretic, demonic and sectarian, and are branded as Chinese Communist Party supporters or Chinese spies by most NGOs advocating in western countries for the exiled Government’s goals.

The role of the Western human rights NGOs

The Western NGOs present pre-1951 Tibet as Shangri-La in a way that serves to reinforce Tibet’s claim for sovereignty in the international community by capitalizing on the yearnings of Western activists for a lost social and ecological harmony. For them China is demonized as an evil force which invaded Tibet in 1951, destroying a previously harmonious, peaceful, ecological and spiritual society. While the 14^th Dalai Lama has stated that “all Tibetans want more prosperity, more material development”, those material developments realized by China in contemporary Tibet are seen by the Western NGOs as an immoral cultural regression and a mean of implementing brutal oppression which primarily benefits the Chinese state and Han migrants in Tibet.

The discussion on human rights has been added and elaborated by the exiles and their NGO supporters and has a close fit with similar concerns emerging in international politics generally. While exiled critics see a human rights strategy as detracting from a focus on Tibet’s lack of independence, Chinese officials regard it as the heart of the exiles’ campaign to internationalize the Tibet issue. However, the expression of the Tibet issue as a human rights problem – the mainstay of the exiled Government’s strategy since the mid-1980s – has garnered support from across the political spectrum and provides the exiled Government and their supporting NGOs with a visibility in global politics they would not otherwise have. It stands, moreover, as a challenge to the forced dichotomy of the real versus the ideal and the hegemony of realism in politics generally.

In the last two decades, a statistical table of causalities among Tibetans from 1951 through the 1970s has been widely circulated by Western NGOs. Its total of 1.2 million deaths is based solely on unconfirmed refugee estimates, but is cited often by Western politicians and media. Such figures are characterized by unsubstantiated assertions and improbabilities criticised also by established NGOs advocating for Tibetan independence: for example the head of the Free Tibet Campaign NGO based in UK, examined the refugee interview documents and found large-scale duplications.

The official 1953 census recorded the entire population residing in Tibet at 1.3 million. Other census counts put the population within Tibet at the time at about two million. If the Chinese killed 1.2 million in the early 1960s then almost all of Tibet would have been depopulated, transformed into a killing field dotted with death camps and mass graves of which no evidence exists. Other demographic studies show that, as claimed, battle deaths would have been several times the ratio for the main belligerents in the two World Wars; alleged prison deaths would have required that one-tenth of all Tibetans were imprisoned during each year of a three-decade-long period.

While there were unquestionably substantial causalities in Tibet due to violent actions of the Chinese in the Mao era, as there were everywhere in China, the spread of misleading statistics regarding Tibet seems a clear effort to manipulate public perceptions about the real situation.

While the US has formally agreed that Tibet is an integral part of China, its Congress has nonetheless politically and financially supported the Tibetan independence movement driven by the NGOs and the exiled Government. So did the Nobel Prize Committee when it presented the peace award to the 14^th Dalai Lama in 1989. Such recognitions and support ignore Chinese contributions to economic development in Tibet: the welfare policy adopted by the central government of China since the 1980s has markedly improved the life of the average Tibetan, and religious freedom has been restored.

Instead of praising the efforts of the Chinese government, the US Congress has criticized any progress made as an attempt to erase Tibetan culture, defining such a process as “cultural genocide”. This terminology has been widely exploited by the NGOs in their propaganda effort since the end of the 1980s, even after several failed attempts to apply the term of “genocide”, whose adequacy has been largely contested in the post-Mao era.

Of particular importance is one of the main propaganda tools used by the NGOs and the CTA to generate media attention and political discussion: the campaign of self-immolation in protest against Chinese rule in Tibet. This campaign has intensified since 2009, but has its roots in a few isolated cases that began around 1998 outside Tibet.

The NGOs state that self-immolation acts of Tibetans are an affirmation of the Tibetan identity in the face of “cultural genocide”. This proclamation however disregards the fact that suicide is forbidden in Buddhism. The campaign is heavily exploited around the world. In some cases acts of self-immolation are even used to promote fundraising activities, and particularly in the US, to obtain governmental subsidies, with wide support from cultural exponents like Hollywood actors or famous musicians.

Only very few of Tibet’s Buddhist clerics or exponents of the human rights community have dared to speak out in Western countries against glorifying, praising and promoting acts of self-immolation for political gain. When asking exponents of the NGOs about the justification for this practice, the answer is always evasive, with vague references to obscure roots of self-immolation traditions in the Tibetan culture.

A trilingual (Tibetan – Chinese- English) sign above the entrance to a small café in Nyalam Town, Tibet, 1993

The linking of the Tibet issue to human rights has been traced to the decision of the 14^th Dalai Lama and the exiled government to internationalize in the late 1980s. The foundation of the human rights position is the principle of nonviolence, an important aspect of the public face of the exiled government, and fundamental to its policies and its exploitation of the Shangri-La myth. This has facilitated a seamless incorporation of a human rights consciousness into the approach of supportive NGOs, while simultaneously making it plausible and credible to vast popular audiences, especially to non-Tibetan observers in the West.

Human rights and other transnational issues such as the environment have attracted consent for marginalized identity groups across the globe, popularizing their political concerns and aspirations. Popular movements that pivot on “rights” challenge not only state authority, but more recently, the authority of multinational corporations as well. The effect is that many activists have been mobilized to sympathize with the NGOs advocating for Tibetan independence.

Such activists usually have different ideologies but shares principles close to the Shangri-La utopia, like for example anti-globalists or anarchists, but also ecologists or socialists or vegans… In reality, the concept of human rights diplomacy itself implies the corruption of human rights as an ideal; it is a defective concept from the standpoint of idealists, because it reflects the imperfect fit between their goals and national, political and military hegemonies. It also reflects the gap between popular, state and geo-political interests, particularly when applied with double standards. In the ideal world, rights should be above interests, but in the “real” world, they are merely ideals.

Worldwide there are about a thousand associations, foundations or charity organisations that revolve around the subjects of Tibetan independence, human rights for Tibet or the 14^th Dalai Lama. A complete overview has not been established yet. However, the following NGOs (some registered as charities, some as foundations) play a crucial role in this discussion:

INTERNATIONAL CAMPAIGN FOR TIBET is an NGO (website savetibet.org), based in Washington, US. It is endowed with a 4 million USD annual budget and supports the goals of the 14^th Dalai Lama and the CTA. The NGO says it promotes human rights and democratic freedom in Tibet and is active in lobbying US Congressional committees. It networks with other exiled Chinese democracy NGOs, promotes news coverage of issues in Tibet, like for example self-immolation, “cultural genocide” or anti-Dorje Shugden campaigns. Additionally it publishes two newsletters, the Tibet Press Watch and Tibetan Environment & Development News, and speaks to academics, journalists, and civic and community groups. Its main public exponent is the actor Richard Gere.

TIBET HOUSE (aka Tibet House US Cultural Center of H. H. the Dalai Lama, website tibethouse.us) was founded in 1987 by Columbia University professor Robert Thurman (father of actress Uma Thurman), actor Richard Gere and modern composer Philip Glass (among others) at the behest of the 14^th Dalai Lama. It operated initially only in New York. The organisation now has affiliates in India, Mexico, Germany, Spain, the UK and Russia. Besides the preservation of the Tibetan culture, the organisation is active in supporting the political views of the 14^th Dalai Lama and is very active in propaganda against Chinese rule in Tibet and China. In the US it has annual revenue of 2.5 million USD and accumulated assets of 6.5 million USD.

FREE TIBET (website freetibet.org) is a small NGO based in London, UK with an annual budget of 500,000 USD. In spite of its small budget the NGO has a strong online presence in social media. The group’s political views are aligned with those propagated by the CTA.

STUDENTS FOR A FREE TIBET is an NGO based in New York, US with a declared annual budget of 700,000 USD. The NGO says it is a network of 35’000 students working toward social justice and freedom in Tibet. Students for a Free Tibet educates young people propagating a message of Tibetan independence and works on translating that awareness into action through political, economic, and social campaigns. Students for a Free Tibet say they recognize the legal and historical status of Tibet as an independent country. This NGO was the main organizer of Tibetan protesters who disrupted the Summer Olympic ceremony, the Olympics torch relay in Beijing, 2008.

TIBET FUND (website tibetfund.org) is a foundation based in New York, US. The entity has an annual budget of about 6 million USD and cumulative assets of 8 million USD. The Tibet Fund, founded in 1981, is the principal fund raising organization working very close with the CTA. The fund partner is the organisation OFFICE OF TIBET, the official agency of the 14^th Dalai Lama and the CTA based in Dharamsala, India. OFFICE OF TIBET is present in 13 countries, with bases in New Delhi, Kathmandu, Geneva, New York, Tokyo, London, Paris, Moscow, Brussels, Canberra, Pretoria, Taipei and Budapest. They are in charge of bilateral relations with different countries as well as with European Union institutions and the United Nations Organisation. The organisations have several substructures registered as Foundations in the US and abroad, like for example the OFFICE OF TIBET US or the TIBETAN COMMUNITY DEVELOPMENT FUND INC. The OFFICE OF TIBET US also has a managerial function with respect to the current president of the CTA, Dr. Lobsang Sangay, who is a US citizen living in Boston.

THE DALAI LAMA TRUST (websites dalailama.com, dalailamatrust.org) is the foundation of the 14^th Dalai Lama based in New York and India which administers the royalties and revenues from his intellectual properties and public events. It was filed in 2009 and in the US the foundation has annual revenues of 2 million USD with accumulated assets of 7 million USD. The trust has several substructures registered as foundations in the US and India and possibly abroad. The total assets or revenue of all structures is not known at present.

INDEPENDENT TIBET NETWORK (formerly CAMPAIGN FREE TIBET) is today a rather obscure network of activists propagating radical separatist political views (called “rangzen”) on Tibetan independence. Its website is tibettruth.com. Formed in 1988 it was a lobbying network which campaigned for justice, human rights and independence for Tibet and East Turkestan. The NGO is today linked to a partner organisation called RANGZEN ALLIANCE, registered in New York and led by Tibetan separatists. The political views of both organisations are presently close to anarchism and against the theocracy of the lamas. They are clear opponents to the CTA, which they consider unsuited to true Tibetan independence. The organisation INDEPENDENT TIBET NETWORK appeared to be originally registered in London and had possible links to the UK intelligence services. Today it has links to the Anonymous hacking group. INDEPENDENT TIBET NETWORK was very active in the 1990s, forging the notion of “cultural genocide” and birth control issues in Tibet. Since 2008, partnering with RANGZEN ALLIANCE, it also glorifies the self-immolation campaigns in Tibet.

TIBETAN CENTER FOR HUMAN RIGHTS AND DEMOCRACY (website tchrd.org) is an NGO based in Dharamsala, India, closely working with the CTA, also based in Dharamsala. The NGO says it investigates human rights issues in Tibet and amongst Tibetan minorities throughout China. Its budget is unknown. The main focus of the NGO is the coverage of issues in Tibet, like for example self-immolation, political prisoners in China and “cultural genocide”.

The response of the Chinese Government

The Chinese government portrays pre-1951 Tibet not as Shangri-La but as a feudal house of horrors, among the darkest and most backward regions in the world, and one of the regions where human rights violations were most serious. For them the mission in contemporary Tibet is considered as fulfilling a long-term civilizing assignment.

Before the Chinese invasion of Tibet in 1951, the region was ruled by a theocracy and had a social hierarchy similar to pre-feudal times. Tibet was characterized by a form of institutionalized inequality that can be called serfdom: an ancient form of slavery preceding the development of the feudal system. It existed in Tibet until 1959. Exploitation was not through land-rent like in the Middle Ages in Europe but through enslavement to the aristocrats, clerics or manor owners. In return for working the land, the slaves were provided with minimal lodging, clothing and food. This form of slavery was finally abolished in Tibet only in 1959. Until that year, when China cracked down on Tibetan rebels and the 14^th Dalai Lama fled to northern India, around 98% of the population was enslaved in serfdom. For example, the Drepung monastery, on the outskirts of Lhasa, was one of the world’s largest landowners with 185 manors, 25’000 serfs, 300 pastures, and 16’000 herdsmen. High-ranking lamas and secular landowners imposed crippling taxes, forced boys into monastic slavery and pilfered most of the country’s wealth – torturing disobedient serfs in a variety of brutal ways. In feudal Tibet, torture and mutilation – including gouging out eyes, pulling out tongues, severing hamstrings and amputation of limbs – were favoured punishments inflicted upon thieves, and runaway or obstructive serfs. Many materials and photos showing the limbs of serfs amputated by serf-owners in those years are kept in the Tibetan Social and Historical Relics Exhibition in the Beijing Ethnic Cultural Palace.

Earlier Western visitors to Tibet commented on the country’s theocratic despotism. In 1895, an Englishman, Dr. A. L. Waddell, wrote that the populace was under the “intolerable tyranny of monks” and the devil superstitions they had fashioned to terrorize the people. In 1904, the English traveller and writer Perceval Landon described the then Dalai Lama’s rule as “an engine of oppression.” At about that time, another English traveller, Captain W.F.T. O’Connor, observed that “the great landowners and the priests… exercise each in their own dominion a despotic power from which there is no appeal,” while the people are “oppressed by the most monstrous growth of monasticism and priest-craft.” Tibetan rulers “invented degrading legends and stimulated a spirit of superstition” among the common people.

Serf-owners literally possessed the living bodies of their serfs. Since serfs were at their disposal as their private property, they could trade and transfer them, present them as gifts, use them as collateral against debts and exchange them. Before 1951, Lhasa’s downtown area had a population of around 20’000. It was surrounded by some 1’000 tattered tents, homes of poverty-stricken people and beggars. The average life expectancy was only 35.5 years. In Tibet there was not a single school in the modern sense. The enrolment rate of school-age children was less than 2 percent, and the illiteracy rate reached 95 percent.

Over the centuries the Tibetan lords and lamas had seen the Chinese come and go and had enjoyed good relations with them. When the 14^th Dalai Lama was first installed in Lhasa, it was with an armed escort of Chinese troops and an attending Chinese minister, in accordance with a centuries-old tradition. What upset the Tibetan lords and lamas in the early 1950s was that these latest Chinese were Communists. It would be only a matter of time, they feared, before the Communists started imposing their collectivist egalitarian schemes upon Tibet.

The issue flared up in 1956-57, when armed Tibetan bands ambushed convoys of the Chinese People’s Liberation Army. The uprising received extensive assistance from the US Central Intelligence Agency (CIA), including military training, support camps in Nepal, and numerous airlifts. Meanwhile in the US, the American Society for a Free Asia, a CIA-financed front, energetically publicized the cause of Tibetan resistance, with the 14^th Dalai Lama’s eldest brother, Thubtan Norbu, playing an active role in that organization. The 14^th Dalai Lama’s second-eldest brother, Gyalo Thondup, established an intelligence operation with the CIA as early as 1951. He later upgraded it into a CIA-trained guerrilla unit whose recruits parachuted back into Tibet later in the decade. Many Tibetan commandos and agents whom the CIA dropped into the country were chiefs of aristocratic clans or the sons of chiefs.

Whatever the oppressions introduced by the Chinese after 1959, they did eradicate slavery and the Tibetan serfdom system of unpaid labour. They eliminated the many crushing taxes, started work projects, and greatly reduced unemployment and begging. They established secular schools, thereby breaking the educational monopoly of the monasteries. And they constructed running water and electrical systems. Chinese authorities also claim to have put an end to flogging, mutilation, skinning and amputation as forms of criminal punishment.

They themselves, however, have been charged with acts of brutality by exiled Tibetans. The Chinese authorities admit to such acts, particularly during the 1966-76 Cultural Revolution when the persecution of religious beliefs reached an apex in both China and Tibet. Prior to that, after the uprising in 1959, thousands of Tibetans were incarcerated. And during the Mao-era “Great Leap Forward”, forced collectivization and grain farming were imposed on the Tibetan peasantry, sometimes with disastrous effect on production, which led to famine and substantial related causalities.

Then, in the late 1970s, China began relaxing controls and tried to undo some of the damage inflicted during the previous two decades. In 1980, the Chinese government initiated reforms reportedly designed to grant Tibet a greater degree of self-rule and self-administration. Tibetans would now be allowed to cultivate private plots, sell their harvest surpluses, decide for themselves what crops to grow, and keep yaks and sheep. Communication with the outside world was again permitted, and frontier controls were eased to permit some Tibetans to visit exiled relatives in India and Nepal.

By the mid-1980s many of the principal lamas had begun to shuttle back and forth between China and the exiled communities abroad, restoring their monasteries in Tibet and helping to revitalize Buddhism there, including the popular religious practice of worshipping the deity Dorje Shugden. This exchange of religious teaching and movement of clerics across the Chinese border in the Tibetan communities has generated, among the CTA and the 14^th Dalai Lama, fears of an accelerating loss of spiritual authority with respect to rival monastic doctrines, leading to the de-facto ban of Dorje Shugden devotion and consequent religious tensions.

In the 1990s, large numbers of Han, the ethnic group comprising over 95 percent of China’s immense population, began migrating into Tibet. Demographic issues in Tibet have always been strongly affected by conflict, migration and family planning. However, the NGO Tibetan Youth Congress has compared China’s migration of Han Chinese to Tibet to the Nazi extermination of Jews. Exiled leaders contend that the Tibetan population was 6 million in 1951 (in contrast of the figures of around 2 million of the 1953 census) and the same a half-century later, because the Chinese government killed al least 1.2 million Tibetans through war, imprisonment, execution, or famine. The figure is cited in Western media, but has been challenged by demographers. The 14^th Dalai Lama has accused China of demographic aggression. Tibetan exiles and NGO supporters argue that family planning restrictions contribute to “cultural genocide” and assert that coercive birth control is applied. In reality, according to the 2000 census, there are 6 million Tibetans and 1.5 million non-Tibetans migrants in Tibet; additionally there are 5.4 million Tibetan migrants in Chinese territories outside the Tibetan plateau.

In spite of the demographic factors, Tibetan exiles and NGO supporters argue that the Chinese government carries out development in Tibet with little regard for the views of Tibetans, and that the Chinese Treasury profits exploit the region through state enterprises in sectors such as in mining and timber that operate in Tibet. It is argued that infrastructure in Tibet is constructed to facilitate military operations and the central Chinese government’s exploitation of resources, while most Tibetans, who are peasants and herders, are shut out of development or at least have benefited from it much less than the Han Chinese migrants in Tibetan areas.

In reality, the Chinese government sustains a net loss from Tibetan areas because it heavily subsidizes infrastructure development and government services. It argues that Tibetans are the principal beneficiaries of Tibet’s development, which provides opportunities and facilities open to all, including elements of preferential policies for Tibetans. Government statements emphasize that most Han Chinese in Tibet are temporary migrants engaged in small trade and thus should not be the most significant elements in any assessment of who, among long-term residents of Tibet, benefits from development.

This includes most rural Tibetans, who have experienced significant increases in income levels, education, health care, transport, environmental protection and communications over the past decades. For example the education system has been tailored to the cultural specificities of Tibetans by developing primary level schooling in the Tibetan language and secondary level schooling on a bilingual basis, adding Chinese languages and supplementary English lessons. Another example is the environment: it is argued that it is best preserved using world standards as a baseline, and is a major asset for the development of tourism in the region as well as in the safeguarding of cultural assets.

What would Marco Polo say?

Marco Polo once said of his travels: “I have not told the half of what I saw because I knew I would not be believed”. Tibet seems like a celestial paradise held in chains, but the west’s tendency to romanticise the country’’s Buddhist culture has distorted mainstream Western views. Popular belief is that under the lamas, Tibetans lived contentedly in a spiritual, non-violent culture, uncorrupted by lust or greed: but in reality society was extremely brutal, comparable to the cruelty of the Islamic State which devastated the Middle East societies in recent years. As much as we might wish it to be otherwise, feudal theocratic Tibet was a far cry from the romanticized Shangri-La so enthusiastically promoted by Western human rights NGOs.

What additional tales would Marco Polo have told today? Maybe that Tibet has become a major tourist destination for idealists? Or that only a handful of Tibetans would welcome a return of theocratic and aristocratic clans? That the Shangri-La myth is an ideological projection for offering redemption from the sins of consumerism? Or that the whole purpose of promoting the Shangri-La myth is to trade indulgences like Pope Leo X did in 1517? That maybe one day a Buddhist “Martin Luther” will come and nail a Manifesto on the gates of the Potala palace in Lhasa? Or that the Government of Tibet in Exile is a puppet of the CIA, or a relict of the Cold War? We don’t know, nor do we know what effect his words would have had. As the great navigator himself noted: “I speak and speak, but the listener retains only the words he is expecting. It is not the voice that commands the story: it is the ear”.

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East Asia

Chinese MFA Report 2023: American hegemony and its risks around the world

Published

2 days ago

March 18, 2023

Dr.Nadia Helmy

An official report issued by the Chinese Ministry of Foreign Affairs, on: “Criticizing the concept of American and Western hegemony and democracy, and defending other and new forms of democracy in the world according to the circumstances of each country around the world,” emphasizing on:

Criticism of the United States of America intensifying its efforts to stir up divisions around the world by organizing the so-called “summit for democracy”, inciting confrontation between the authoritarian and democratic camps according to its ideology, and attempting to transform other sovereign states in the American style in order to serve the special American strategy.

To understand how American-dominant democracy operates globally, we will find that the United States classifies other countries for several degrees according to its criterion, that is, its proximity or distance from the concept of democracy, and Washington asks those countries to apply to fill out the “test papers” for democracy issued by the United States of America and its government.

Those American actions in and of themselves are undemocratic, contradict the current trend, and contravene the will of the majority of the members of the international community, and will inevitably lead to a complete and abject failure.

Here, the United States must realize that if it does not completely abandon the theory of “the superiority of American democracy”, and if it does not change its behavior of domination and bullying, which often imposes “American democracy” on others, you will find mockery of it in history books and records.

China, like most countries in the world, searches for the path of development in the first place, not the path of democracy and the policies of hegemony and liberalism in the American way. Therefore, as an affirmation by the Chinese leaders of China’s adoption of the high-quality development model, Chinese Premier “Li Keqiang” presented the Chinese government’s work report at the opening session of the first session of the Fourteenth National People’s Congress, in which it was emphasized that China would follow a development model. A democracy with socialist characteristics in line with China’s real conditions. China has pushed the process of democracy on the basis of national development by taking development as a task of highest priority. Followers agreed, so here remains the final conclusion to evaluate any democratic system around the world, by asking: whether the quality of life of citizens has improved and whether the people are satisfied with the societal situation? It is clear that the model of democracy with socialist characteristics adopted by the Chinese government has succeeded. Chinese socialist democracy is a real democracy, represented by the government’s interest in serving the people, and it has nothing to do with the political system represented by one-party rule or multi-party rule in the American and Western style, which recent experiences have proven to fail to achieve the well-being and prosperity of its people, unlike the ability of the Chinese Communist Party and its leaders to achieve a well-off society model and a high-quality development in all Chinese provinces and cities.

Therefore, the report on the work of the Chinese government came, which was presented by “Li Keqiang”, Premier of the Chinese State Council, on behalf of the State Council of China, at the opening session of the first session of the 14^th National People’s Congress. The sessions of the 14^th session of the National People’s Congress this year 2023 are of special importance, as the model of socialist democracy with Chinese characteristics succeeded in outperforming many Western democracies through the success of many delegates in the National People’s Congress in forming many of the main institutions of the Communist Party and the state. They also tightened control over the bodies supervising the financial sector and scientific and technological work in the Chinese state, with an agreement to “strengthen party work” in private companies, in order to preserve the interests of the Chinese people and achieve a high-quality development model.

Therefore, the Chinese government’s 2023 action plan is based on adhering to the general basic business idea of making progress by maintaining stability, comprehensively applying China’s new development thinking, accelerating the establishment of a new development pattern, comprehensively deepening reform and opening up, and adhering to development, which is driven by innovation, and the high-quality development.

Here, we must refer to the report of the Chinese Ministry of Foreign Affairs, issued on Monday, February 20, 2023, regarding American hegemony and its dangers, with the aim of exposing the United States’ abuse of hegemony in various fields, and attracting the Chinese Foreign Ministry to the attention of the international community for a greater understanding of the dangers of American practices to peace. And stability in the whole world, by interfering in the internal affairs of other countries, causing subversion and international chaos, deliberately waging wars and harming the entire international community.

The United States of America has also developed a book on hegemony to organize “color revolutions” and incite regional conflicts and even wage wars directly under the guise of promoting democracy, freedom and human rights, and Washington has sought to impose rules that serve its own interests in the name of supporting a “rules-based international order”, which is itself is far from it.

There have been many cases of US interference in the internal affairs of other countries, under the guise of “promoting democracy”, such as the American incitement to “color revolutions” in the Eurasia region, and the “Arab Spring” revolutions in West Asia and North Africa to spread chaos, which led to chaos and vandalism and destruction in many countries in which Washington intervened.

The United States practices double standards in international rules, as the United States put its self-interest first and moved away from all treaties, charters and work mechanisms of recognized international organizations and placed its domestic law above international law.

The United States has also been issuing arbitrary judgments regarding assessing the level of democracy in other countries, and fabricating false narratives about “democracy versus authoritarianism” to incite estrangement, division, competition and confrontation. On December 2021, the United States hosted the first “summit for democracy”, which was met with criticism and opposition from many countries because it mocked the spirit of democracy and worked to divide the world.

Also, “American military dominance has caused human tragedies. The wars and military operations launched by the United States in the name of fighting terrorism have claimed the lives of more than a million civilians and displaced tens of millions”.

The United States of America also seeks to deter the scientific, technological and economic development of other countries through the exercise of monopoly power and measures of repression and technological restrictions in the areas of high technology. The United States monopolized intellectual property in the name of protection, and reaped huge profits through this illegal monopoly.

The United States has also used disinformation as a weapon to attack other countries, and for this it has recruited groups and individuals who fabricate stories and spread them around the world to mislead world public opinion with unlimited American support.

Therefore, all forms of American hegemony and power politics must be opposed, to refuse to interfere in the internal affairs of other countries, to force them to abandon their hegemonic and tyrannical practices around the world.

Here, It becomes clear that the Americans are victorious in a clear way for the pragmatic philosophy in theory and practice, and that their segment of the intelligentsia (intellectuals and intelligence) adopts the principle of “the end justifies the means”. Perhaps the French thinker “Alexis de Tocqueville” explained this in a practical way in his book published in two volumes in 1840, entitled (Democracy in America) and its summary: (Democracy in the United States of America can be as tyrannical as dictatorship when voters decide to vote for themselves with money).

And (American democracy) did not stop at these characteristics only, because its sources are basically built philosophically at the hands of European philosophers who went to the United States, because they found in it the right soil for ideas and strategies that are based on plunder, occupation, siege, sanctions, overthrowing governments, and most importantly neglecting real and free popular choices to build the country and the human being, these thinkers came to it to perpetuate this behavior based on individualism, power and domination, and this is what is actually happening now.

In this context, it was natural for President “Biden’s” American Summit for Democracy to be a disgrace and an intellectual, political, and moral defect, as half of the peoples of the earth were absent from it, and China did not invite to it, and the text of the peoples and systems of the world was absent from it, so the summit’s democracy was synonymous with American arrogance, and it raised issues: (Tyranny- corruption- human rights) in it is a purely political proposition far from promoting the values of dialogue, peace, and friendship between peoples, framed by the previous ideas of the theorists of American hegemony and unipolarity, and whoever is not with us is against us, so the American Democracy Summit 2022 focused blatantly in its functional attack on the Chinese experience and on different in this respect. In my belief, what happened by Washington will not result in the emergence of any new and stable world order, with those in charge of the American administration adhering to the same old concepts and mentality of hegemony, control, and steering the helm of the world according to their interests.

East Asia

China’s “Two Sessions” and the return of one-man rule

Published

3 days ago

March 17, 2023

Bejoy Sebastian

Xi Jinping, the President of China and Chairman of the Central Military Commission, makes a public pledge of allegiance to the Constitution at the Great Hall of the People in Beijing, March 10, 2023. (Xinhua/Xie Huanchi)

In this essay, I try to demystify the recently concluded “Two Sessions” in China by giving a brief historical context, as the country slides back into the peril of one-leader-centered politics, reminiscent of a bygone era.

***

With the conclusion of the first annual session of the 14th National People’s Congress (NPC) of China on March 13, Xi Jinping has secured a norm-breaking third term as President of the People’s Republic of China (PRC) in a “unanimous” vote, just five months after he was “re-elected” as the General Secretary of the ruling Chinese Communist Party (CCP) for the third time in a row. The NPC, which is elected for a term of five years, is a largely ceremonial unicameral national legislature of China and “the highest organ of state power” as per the PRC’s Constitution. It also happens to be the largest law-making body in the world on paper.

Since the foundation of the People’s Republic under the leadership of Mao Zedong in October 1949, mainland China has been under the sole rule of the CCP. The deputies (members) of the NPC, elected from the thirty-five electoral units of China, usually won’t go against CCP-endorsed policies, but rather merely rubber-stamp them.While this has been the case for long, there are eight “legally-sanctioned” minor parties in China, on paper, that exists by playing second fiddle to the CCP without posing any serious challenge to its unrestricted authority.

These parties are given a voice to raise their concerns and suggestions through the so-called Chinese People’s Political Consultative Conference (CPPCC), a national-level political advisory body that meets once in a year parallelly during the annual session of the NPC. About 60.8 per cent of the total membership of CPPCC belongs to non-CCP parties, along with representation from various sectors of the society and the economy, specialised professions and social groups.

Together, these two annual meetings – the NPC and the CPPCC – are referred to as the “Two Sessions” or Lianghui in the Chinese language. This year, it took place between March 4 and 13, with 2977 deputies attending the NPC session and 2,172 members attending the CPPCC session from all over China.

A brief history

The NPC and the CPPCC are rubber stamp bodies that simply pass the laws or approve the policies that have been already decided upon by the CCP. While the NPC dates back to 1954, when the first Constitution of China was promulgated, the CPPCC traces its origins back to the foundation of the PRC in 1949 when the CCP invited all friendly political parties to engage in discussions on the road to the proclamation of the new CCP-led People’s Republic in Beijing by replacing the nationalist Kuomintang party-led Republic of China at a time when its victory in the Chinese Civil War (1927-1949) was almost certain.

The first CPPCC of 1949 served effectively as the Constituent Assembly of China for drafting and framing the PRCs first Constitution. The meeting approved the “Common Programme”, which was akin to an interim Constitution and Mao Zedong was chosen as Chairman of the Central People’s Government. The PRC was proclaimed soon after the end of the conference in October 1949.

In the following years, the first permanent Constitution of the PRC was drafted. Exactly five years after the passage of the “Common Programme”, in 1954, the first NPC was convened, which unanimously approved the new Constitution. This was the PRC’s first Constitution since its founding. Later, in 1975 and 1978, two intervening versions of the Constitution were promulgated and the current Constitution came into effect in 1982. However, despite these four Constitutions and other political mechanisms of visible separation of power, the CCP had kept the whole of China, except the island of Taiwan, under its control without any opposition for the last seven-and-a-half decades.

Xi Jinping and his coterie of loyalists in the party-state apparatus who were appointed through last year’s 20th Party Congress and the recently concluded annual session of the NPC, represents the fifth generation in the line of succession of Chinese political leadership since Mao Zedong. China has seen the worst of authoritarianism under the Mao era (1949-1976), whose disastrous policies and initiatives such as the Great Leap Forward (1958-62) and the Cultural Revolution (1966-76) led to the death of more than 65 million Chinese people – either by forced famines, imprisonment or execution.

Following Mao’s death in 1976, his close aide and designated successor Hua Guofeng followed the policy of “Two Whatevers” (liang ge fanxi), which basically meant “whatever policy decisions Mao made and whatever instructions Mao gave” and rejected all calls for reforms. But a breakthrough occurred two years later during the third plenary session of the eleventh CCP Central Committee held in December 1978, when reform-minded Deng Xiaoping emerged as China’s new paramount leader.

Deng, often regarded as the “Architect of Modern China”’, denounced Mao’s hardline policies and set China on a new course of far-reaching economic reforms, even though he has ruthlessly quelled democratic upheavals during his tenure such as the Tiananmen Square massacre of 1989.

Moving away from Deng’s “collective leadership” approach

Having seen the worst face of complete centralisation of power in the hands of one leader, Deng initiated key changes in China’s governance system such as the setting of a two-term limit for higher state officials, including the President, Vice-President, and the Premier of the State Council. He never held any post other than chairing two key bodies of power – the Central Military Commission and the now-defunct Central Advisory Commission that existed between 1982 and 1992. Even though the position of CCP General Secretary, the de facto leader of China, has no term limits, there were orderly transitions of power every ten years between 1992 and 2018, in the two generations of leadership (Jiang Zemin and Hu Jintao) that followed Deng Xiaoping.

In 2018, when Xi Jinping was re-elected as China’s leader, he removed the term limits for Presidency that were put in place during the Deng era, thereby allowing him to rule for life. He then forced senior leaders into early retirement and incorporated his eponymous ideology, called the Xi Jinping Thought, to the party and state Constitutions, the first leader since Mao to have such an honour while in office. During President Xi’s first two terms, there existed a bare minimum balance of power between the party and the state as Premier Li Keqiang represented a rival faction within the CCP (the Tuanpai or the Youth League Faction).

Xi and his coterie of loyalists’ blur party-state thin line

While the NPC have traditionally tried to maintain an internal balance of power in a way to accommodate the interests of different political factions, now the Xi Jinping faction is the only active faction with exercisable power in the party-state apparatus. The thin line between the Party and the government has been blurred, reminiscent of the pre-1976 era. Xi and his “yes-men” in key positions of the CCP’s Politburo Standing Committee and the PRC’s State Council have completely abandoned the “collective leadership” model pioneered by Deng Xiaoping and all the rival factions within the Party have been sidelined.

Xi has now consolidated his position as the most powerful leader the PRC has seen since Mao, with a firmer grip of control on the party, the government and the military. But, unlike the pre-1976 era, Xi Jinping is leading a more powerful China, which is the second largest economy in the world with a rapidly modernising military. Moreover, China’s humungous industrial base forms the core of global manufacturing and supply chains.

As widely expected, Li Qiang, a long-term ally of Xi Jinping and the former party chief of Shanghai who oversaw the controversial “zero-Covid” policy, was appointed as China’s new Premier in place of Li Keqiang at the recently concluded NPC. With other loyalists such as the new Vice President Han Zheng in the State Council and two other allies being appointed to head the NPC and the CPPCC, Xi Jinping has effectively removed all the rival centres of power within China’s party-state apparatus.

Xi Jinping’s previous two terms were characterised by fueling hyper-nationalism at home and upping the ante on regional disputes and engaging in a global strategic competition with the United States. This is expected to be continued, while some experts believe that the new Premier Li Qiang, having a pro-business image, can exert a moderating influence on Xi, who had placed stricter controls on industries and businesses, during his second term in particular. However, the extent of such an influence remains to be seen.

During the closing session of the 14th NPC, Xi emphasised security as “the bedrock of development, while stability is a pre-requisite for prosperity” and called for building the People’s Liberation Army (PLA) into a “Great Wall of Steel” that safeguards national security, sovereignty and developmental interests of China.

The address reflected similar concerns shared during the 20th CCP Congress held in October 2022, when Xi used the word “security” 91 times. Similarly, an often-repeated phrase is “the great rejuvenation of the Chinese nation”, citing China’s “century of humiliation”, and projecting the CCP as the country’s only saviour, especially from external enemies and threats. All these rhetoric is aimed at invoking revanchist sentiments within the Chinese population and thereby using it to sustain its continued legitimacy at home.

After the conclusion of NPC, Chinese state-run media Xinhua wrote, “The (NPC) session called on the Chinese people of all ethnic groups to rally more closely around the CPC Central Committee with Comrade Xi Jinping at its core, to hold high the great banner of socialism with Chinese characteristics, follow the guidance of Xi Jinping Thought on Socialism with Chinese Characteristics for a New Era, and fully implement the guiding principles of the Party’s 20th National Congress…”

In other words, the Party “guides and leads” everything and now there is a singular source of power for the Party and the government, which seems to look like a return of China to one-leader-centered politics after nearly five decades. Hope, the PRC’s evolving political dynamics won’t take a perilous turn, particularly in the foreign and security policy fronts, which is increasingly witnessing conflictual turn of events in the recent past.

East Asia

Organizational structures in formulating China’s decisions to manage international affairs Under Xi Jinping

Published

4 days ago

March 16, 2023

Dr.Nadia Helmy

Chinese President “Xi Jinping” sent several clear messages, in his closing speech on Monday, March 13, 2023 in the capital, Beijing, in front of the meetings of the two sessions or sessions of the annual “Lianghui” that takes place in March of each year, with the participation of the National People’s Congress of China, that is, The Chinese Parliament or Congress and the Chinese People’s Political Consultative Council, all of which focus on the fact that China is coming. China also expressed its vision in the management of international affairs, through the words of Chinese President “Xi Jinping” himself, by affirming: “China believes that all countries, big or small, strong or weak, rich or poor, are equal members of the international community”. Their internal affairs do not bear any external interference, their sovereignty and dignity must be respected, and their right to choose social systems and development paths must be adhered to independently and justly.

Chinese foreign policy is generally based on the principle of (Tao Guangyang Wei), meaning “building capabilities and waiting for time”, to make Chinese foreign policy more active and resolute. China’s foreign policy agenda is witnessing a major shift in institutional power from the ministries that used to lead the traditional diplomacy process to specialized units as a result of the development and intensity of China’s external activity. China is the ruler in setting public and foreign policy, but also supervises the extent of its implementation, but this is done officially independently of the government, unlike most other countries. Likewise, the political decision in China is taken by the supreme political leadership of the party and the state as a center, but after extensive studies carried out by the competent agencies in the state and the party and specialized research centers to study and discuss all available options for implementation.

We find here the pivotal and vital role of the “Political Planning” Department of the Chinese Ministry of Foreign Affairs to understand and formulate China’s foreign policy decisions internationally, which undertakes tasks: conducting studies of comprehensive and strategic issues of international situations and international relations, developing policies and plans in foreign affairs, preparing drafts of important diplomatic documents, and raising awareness of policies Foreign affairs, coordinating research and studies work, and carrying out work related to studies of the history of diplomacy for the new China. We note the role of Chinese foreign policy research centers, as well as academic and university research institutions to contribute and are closely linked to the government, the army and the party partly due to the fact that they enjoy reliable licensed channels to convey their advice to the supreme leadership, and are closely linked to the government, the army and the party, partly due to the fact that they enjoy licensed channels Reliable to pass on her advice to the top leadership of the Chinese state.

And the most prominent formations of the organizational structure, which contribute to drawing the decisions and policies of the Chinese Ministry of Foreign Affairs, and thus contribute to shaping the external decisions of China, as follows:

(Office of the Ministry “Diwan”- Political Planning Department- Asia Department – Western Asia and North Africa Department- Africa Department- Eastern Europe and Central Asia Department- Europe Department- North America and Oceania Department- Latin America Department- International Organizations and Conferences Department- Arms Control Department- Treaties and Laws Department- Information Department- Protocol Department – Consular Department (Consular Protection Center)- Hong Kong, Macao and Taiwan Affairs Department- Translation Office- Coordination Department for Foreign Affairs- External Security Affairs Department- Retired Cadres Department- Cadres Department- Administrative Affairs Department- Financial Department- Committee Ministry of the Communist Party of China (Department of Party Affairs Committee of the Ministry and Diplomatic Missions Abroad)- Office of the Leading Team on Inspection Work of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs- Archives Department- Service Office of Departments of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs and Overseas Diplomatic Missions)

Special interest groups or groups play a crucial role in China’s external decision-making. They provide relevant input and a more specialized viewpoint in all political areas ranging from internal land reform in the Chinese state to relations between the United States of America and China. These groups consist mainly of government institutions. Centralization and state-owned enterprises, the results of politics in China are often the result of centralized bureaucracies and provincial-level governments.

China also works within the framework of a long-term strategic plan, which is reviewed at the National Congress of the Communist Party, which is held every five years. Here, the Central School of the Communist Party of China carries out the process of political and party education at the level of all diplomats and representatives of the foreign policy of the state, including state employees, leading and executive officials, from the level of ministers and agents and below, as each of them devotes himself to different periods, varying according to the degree of official, from one month To a year, to study, train and learn in the Central School of the Party.

Within the framework of the Chinese Belt and Road Initiative, China has concluded agreements with more than forty countries around the world, including the economic corridor agreement between Mongolia, Russia and China, the economic corridor between China and Pakistan, work to develop the port of Gwadar in Pakistan, a port in Sri Lanka and another in Myanmar, and the construction of a railway High-speed rail between Hungary and Serbia, and between Addis Ababa and Djibouti. The Asian Infrastructure Investment Bank, which China called for, is developing projects in several Arab countries, including the Gulf Cooperation Council countries. Negotiations are also taking place between China and Israel at the present time to establish a free trade zone between them, despite the American refusal to do so. A railway has also been established between China and Laos, and between China and Thailand, and between Jakarta and Bandung. China’s military, naval and diplomatic endeavors have also expanded as part of the “Pearl String Strategy”, which secures China’s strategic positions in the Indian Ocean and Malacca Strait regions.

China also put forward its vision in the management of international affairs, by emphasizing the issue of adhering to the principle of (indivisible security and the commitment to take seriously the legitimate security concerns of all countries), stressing that “humanity is an indivisible security community”, and that “the security of one country should not come at the expense of the security of other countries”. With the continuous Chinese warning that the misuse of long-term unilateral sanctions does not solve any international problem, but rather creates more difficulties and complications for everyone, China’s invitation to participate in the formulation of a new international peace program also came.

China makes its foreign policy based on three pillars: (the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, the International Liaison Department, and the United Front Work Department). Each of these institutions plays a supportive role for the leadership of the Chinese Communist Party, led by President “Xi Jinping”, who ultimately has the authority to make the final decision and determine Beijing’s position on various global issues. We find that since the establishment of the Chinese President “Xi Jinping” of the Central Foreign Affairs Committee of the Communist Party in 2018, the Communist Party and President “Xi” have a major role in influencing the course of the management of international Chinese affairs, within the framework of personal and partisan influence on the making of China’s foreign policy. This is through what is known as the “International Liaison Department” within the Central Committee of the ruling Communist Party, which empowers the Chinese leadership and its ruling party to make political decisions and promote a separate foreign policy agenda for China.

The priorities of Chinese foreign policy can be understood through the words of former Chinese Foreign Minister “Wang Yi”, who identified “five major priorities for Chinese diplomacy”, which are:

(fully serve domestic development, resolutely safeguard national interests, constantly deepen partnership with other countries, staunchly defend international multilateralism, and broaden the base of China’s international cooperation more actively in international affairs)

After the spread of the Corona pandemic (Covid-19), Chinese diplomacy continued to carry out its various functions and roles actively and effectively despite the crisis, by employing modern technology and communications, and it turned to the “cloud diplomacy” mode, through phone calls, exchange of correspondence, and international video conferencing.

Here, on Tuesday, February 21, 2023, China issued the (Global Security) initiative, which was proposed by Chinese President “Xi Jinping”, through which it aims to eliminate the root causes of international conflicts, foremost of which is the ongoing conflict in Ukraine, which is “aggravated and out of control”. According to the assurances of the current Chinese Foreign Minister, “Chen Gang” in his statement that his country is “extremely concerned” and Beijing will work to “promote peace dialogue between the parties to the conflict.” Also, during the launch of the new “global security” initiative within the vision of President “Xi Jinping”, President “Xi” himself affirmed to continue to strengthen peace dialogue and work with the international community to consolidate dialogue and consultation, address the concerns of all parties, and strive to achieve common security among all.

The (global security) initiative, which was formulated in a 10-page document, is based on 6 main principles that China announced its international adoption. The essence of this new vision of security is the call for the concept of common security, respect and protection of the security of every country, and the adoption of a comprehensive approach to maintaining security in Both traditional and non-traditional areas, strengthen security governance in a coordinated manner, commit to cooperation and achieve security through political dialogue and peaceful negotiations, and strive to achieve sustainable security and resolve conflicts through development and eliminate the breeding ground for insecurity.

Here, Beijing denounced what it described as “false accusations” made by the United States of America stating that “China is considering arming Russia in its war against Ukraine”. Through the statements of the Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesman, “Wang Wenbin,” that “we do not accept the United States pointing fingers at Sino-Russian relations, let alone coercion and pressure”, accusing Washington of “spreading false information”. He warned the United States of America of its actions, and to do more to improve the situation and promote peace and dialogue instead of stirring up grudges and conflicts, and to stop evading responsibility and spreading false information about China regarding its relations with Russia. The Chinese Foreign Ministry stressed that “China’s approach on the Ukrainian issue can be summed up in one sentence, which is to urge peace and promote dialogue”.

The Chinese statements regarding its relations with Russia came in response to the United States of America, after accusing US Secretary of State “Anthony Blinken” in an interview with the American “CBS” station, that China is “now considering providing lethal support” to Moscow, ranging from “ammunition and weapons themselves”. Blinken also made similar statements in a series of interviews while he was in Germany, participating in the Munich Security Conference.

And through the vision of Chinese think tanks to study the equations of the repercussions of the Russian-Ukrainian war, and its existing and expected transformations at various political and economic levels for China, by drawing the features of a new international system in a way that leads to reorienting China’s foreign agenda to new geopolitical areas according to the principle of “outward displacement” and networking, flexibility with “potential allies”, according to the new Chinese vision, following the study of the results of the impact of the Russian-Ukrainian war on China.

And the most important thing here remains China’s lack of interest in the nature of the ruling political regimes in the context of its relations with the world, unlike the United States of America and the West, and it does not seek to promote its ideology abroad, and it agrees with many countries of the world in its view of American and Western liberal and democratic calls, as they are tools of states. Western only and should not apply to everyone.

China aspires to secure the greatest amount of security stability in the region after conducting the Saudi-Iranian reconciliation process as a Chinese security involvement of deep significance in the region to protect the security of sea lanes and straits, as a major requirement for Beijing’s economic development through its Belt and Road initiative, so that Beijing can launch programs to create and modernize Roads, railways, ports, communication systems and free trade cities throughout the region under a stable security environment. Such a Saudi-Iranian agreement, sponsored by China, is a blow to US influence in the Middle East. On a personal level, the words of Chinese Professor Wang Ewei, director of the Institute of International Studies at Renmin University, i.e. the Chinese people, stopped me for a long time, saying: “The Saudi-Iranian deal confirms the fact that Chinese mediation solves problems that Western mediation cannot solve”.

Hence, we increasingly understand the new approach of Chinese diplomacy towards foreign policy issues, especially in light of the Beijing government’s current endeavor to redraw maps of its political influence, by activating economic and political tools to expand and acquire more new geopolitical spaces. So, in line with the increasing breadth and depth of Beijing’s foreign policy agenda, Chinese policymakers expanded their thinking beyond geopolitical understanding of foreign affairs, and therefore many central government institutions specialized in economic policies and domestic industry are now involved in setting China’s foreign policy agenda.